THE 40% NEVER WIN:

Victory's Cost: Healthcare and Abortion Rights (Kate Michelman, 3/28/10, Real Clear Politics)

Pro-choice activists are torn between celebrating the passage of health care legislation and confusion, if not anger, at the price paid to obtain it. Millions of Americans, including a disproportionate number of women, will have access to health care they desperately need. But this victory was achieved through a fundamental change in the way we treat reproductive rights. [...]

Members of Congress faced a difficult dilemma. But it is important to ask whether this price had to be paid, what this says about the commitment of Democratic leaders to reproductive rights and what the future holds on this issue. [...]

It was no accident Democrats lacked the votes to pass a bill including access to abortion as a necessary part of women's health care. It was a direct result of a calibrated Democratic strategy to recruit anti-choice candidates, a strategy based on a misunderstanding of the 2004 election. Moreover, insufficient votes for a fundamental value should not lead one to quickly surrender that value.

Many planks of the bill were controversial from the outset and, in time, the bill itself lacked majority support. But access to abortion was the one plank the leaders tossed aside without a fight. On other issues, arms were twisted, grassroots networks activated, Cornhuskers kicked-back, Louisianans purchased, and student loans made.